FOOD FOR PEACE: FORMER AGRICULTURE SECREATRY SEES NUTRITION IN DIPLOMACY

Within a generation, the world will have to increase its food-producing capacity by two-thirds to feed the 3.5 billion more people expected to be alive on earth by 2020.

Feeding these people, who represent a 60 percent population increase, means "our diplomats will have a solid basis for providing a peaceful world," former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz said Tuesday.

Butz, dean emeritus of agriculture at Purdue University and a consultant to business and trade organizations, spoke to a dinner audience of about 300 at a meeting of the Cape Girardeau Executives Club at the Drury Lodge.

Known for his free-market philosophies and salty language during his tenure as secretary of agriculture under both Presidents Nixon and Ford, the 83-year-old Butz did not disappoint on either count Tuesday night.

Those who criticize the U.S. food production system as unsafe or costly take too much for granted, Butz told the audience.

He said only 12 percent of the typical American's take-home pay is spent on food, including meals eaten outside the home.

"That's the lowest of any country on the face of the earth, and the lowest in the history of the United States," he said.

Poisons, he said, have enabled American farmers to increase yields dramatically since his days growing up on a farm in Indiana.

"Back then it took 30 minutes to produce a bushel of corn," he said. "Now we do it in 30 seconds."

Poisons also have made it possible to take a bite from a piece of fruit without having to worry about worms, he said, biting into a red apple.

He identified the country's number one problem as this: "There's no place to park.

"... I like our problems," Butz said.

Butz served as secretary of agriculture from 1971-76. He resigned under pressure after making a racist joke about blacks during the 1976 presidential campaign.

Throughout the speech, Butz lived up to his reputation for joke-making and storytelling, his topics ranging from coyotes to illegitimacy.

But ending on a serious note, he pointed to Somalia, where American soldiers are now guarding convoys of food, as a demonstration of how important a healthy food production system is to the future stability of the world.

In the 1990s alone, the world population will increase by 20 percent, from 5 to 6 billion, with most of the growth occurring in Latin America and Asia, Butz said.

"You can't build a peaceful world on the basis of hungry people," he observed.

If God were to return today, He would add a new beatitude, Butz declared: "Blessed are the food-producers, for they shall become the peacemakers."